Citadel Council Committee for the Common Defense
The (COMDEF) was a military headquarters formation subordinated to the triumvirs of the Citadel Council. Assigned strategic command and control of the Citadel Fleet, the Committee for the Common Defense oversees at the strategic level all peacekeeping and military operations conducted by military forces of the Citadel Council throughout all Citadel space. Within the expanses of Citadel space, the Committee for the Common Defense directly commands the galaxy's largest military power and peacekeeping force, and is entrusted with maintaining galactic security; deterring aggression between the various divided species inhabiting the galaxy; and lastly, providing for the common defense of the galaxy against external attack. For three thousand years ( ), the Committee for the Common Defense has maintained the stability of the entire galaxy—it has , , and . A peerless military power with no equal, the Committee for the Common Defense and its successful aversion of dozens of major wars are regarded as the greatest achievement of the . In the popular media colloquial, it is often referred to in brief as "COMDEF" (a contraction of Common Defense); in military parlance it is referred to as the Unified Headquarters, Citadel Council Joint Forces Command (JOINTFORCOM). __TOC__ Military constituency All major client races of the Citadel Council—asari, turians, and salarians—are required to subordinate all standing military forces to the command and control of the Citadel Council Committee for the Common Defense; thus these client races' militaries together comprise the Citadel Fleet and the forces commanded by the Committee for the Common Defense. A race's intelligence forces or non-uniformed irregular forces (e.g., the ) or police/security forces (e.g., the ) are not subsumed into the Committee for the Common Defense's military forces, only uniformed forces. The military contributions of the asari, turians, and salarians together comprise the awesome forces at the disposal of the Committee for the Common Defense—these range from the massive to the . Third-party forces It is noteworthy that ( ) is not under the Committee for the Common Defense's supervision—COMDEF is strictly responsible for military operations, not policing or everyday security. Moreover, it is important to note that the 's are not answerable either to the Committee for the Common Defense—Spectre agents answer directly to the triumvirs of the Council and are not part of the Citadel Fleet's command-and-control hierarchy. Regardless, if ordered to do so by the Council triumvirate, Spectres may be (temporarily) appended to Citadel Fleet operations, during which they are responsible to the Committee for the Common Defense. Moreover, by the concession of the , are habitually attached to the Committee of the Common Defense for intelligence-gathering and unconventional warfare purposes. Associate Council races (e.g., ) are not nominally required to contribute forces to the command of the Committee for the Common Defense because associate species are regarded as "independent races with their own sovereign governments" and thus are not under the moral obligation to provide for the common galactic defense. However, associate races that are elected to join the main three Council species are forced to hand control of their military to the Committee for the Common Defense—for with the prestige and concessions that come with becoming a major Council client race comes also the responsibility to defend the entire galaxy from attack. Organization The Committee for the Common Defense at its head consists of two dozen admirals and generals that are the executive commander-in-chiefs of the . They decide the strategic deployment and posture of Citadel Fleet units across and preposition military units in anticipation of future conflicts or in shows-of-force to deter these conflicts from arising. Beneath these commanders-in-chiefs are thousands of staff officers, strategists, intelligence officers, and operational advisers that translate the strategic discussions of these executive commanders into actual operation orders (OPORDs), dictating the operational specifics, logistical enablement, and rules of engagement for each individual deployment. Countless intelligence officers and tacticians advise the head admirals and generals of the Committee about arising unrest or disturbances that require the attention of the Committee. Like the that it serves, the Committee for the Common Defense is headquartered on the , in a secure C2 facility—the Citadel Council Joint Forces Command Annex, which is heavily invested with communications facilities to link the Committee's commanding officers to various Citadel Fleet units distributed throughout all of Citadel space, and which is heavily guarded for obvious reasons by both officers and also Citadel Fleet military personnel. Multiple redundant command centers also exist throughout Citadel space in the eventuality that the Citadel is overrun—the second-most-prominent command facility of the Committee for the Common Defense is Citadel Council Naval Forces Command Palaven, on the turian homeworld of . Of the two dozen flag grade officers that sit on the Committee for the Common Defense, traditionally over half are , reflecting the archetypical role of the turian race as the bulk of the Citadel Council's military forces. The remaining slots are held by and generals and admirals. However, the contributions of the other two races should not be discounted or marginalized; the asari fleet contribution to the Citadel Fleet is quite substantial as well, as exemplified by the Fleet's current flagship as of — the asari dreadnaught . Category:RelentlessRecusant